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The Efficacy of Dyslexia Fonts

A great article on Understood.org about the popularity of fonts to help people with dyslexia, but the meat of this article is here:

“Specifically, these fonts still need to be studied using what researchers call controlled, randomized studies. The studies also need to be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. ‘Peer-reviewed’ means that the work has been examined and deemed worthy of publishing by independent experts in the field.”

And thus “…there is no evidence that dyslexia fonts help people with dyslexia to read faster and more accurately.”

Many reading programs claim to be “evidence-based” and to have “research” behind their programs, yet even very popular reading programs are confused about this. Having students take before-and-after evaluations when a program is introduced in a school is not scientific research. Make sure the methods in your reading program have actual scientific research behind them.

More information can be found on this article about the “Dyslexie” font and others here.